The city of Vidor ranks fourth in Southeast Texas for revenue gained from municipal fines. Roughly 9% of the city gains revenue from this source, which includes traffic citations.
Photo taken Saturday, June 20, 2015
Kim Brent/The Enterprise less

The city of Vidor ranks fourth in Southeast Texas for revenue gained from municipal fines. Roughly 9% of the city gains revenue from this source, which includes traffic citations.
Photo taken Saturday, ... more

Photo: Kim Brent

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Photo: Getty Creative Stock

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Highways where DPS troopers are waiting to hand out tickets

We asked our readers to tell us the worst speed traps they've encountered in the Lone Star State. Here's what they reported back.

Highways where DPS troopers are waiting to hand out tickets

We asked our readers to tell us the worst speed traps they've encountered in the Lone Star State. Here's what they reported back.

Whatever they're called, Southeast Texans are familiar with the concept. Officers set up in locations where people frequently speed, and they write tickets.

The subject comes up frequently in a region where small, cash-strapped cities dot a heavily trafficked interstate and state highways.

Those high-speed throughways invite drivers to push a little harder on the gas pedal, and that invites police officers to camp out with ticket books. In Southeast Texas' large and small cities, traffic enforcement is growing, with officers as a whole writing more tickets each year for the past three years.

Even in a state that has a law designed to stop small cities from relying on speed traps to sustain their budgets, no uniform definition of a speed trap exists. Does there have to be deception to call it a trap? Or is it simply tight enforcement of the law in an area where drivers, for whatever reason, are known to speed?

Ultimately, the definition does not matter. Rigid, consistent enforcement of traffic law in Beaumont and Vidor has made familiar the names of Kolin Burmaster and Ray Ruggles. It makes Rose City stand out as more than a green sign on the interstate. It helps Lumberton fund its police department without property taxes.

"People know that they're speeding," Ruggles said. "They just hoped that they could get through (Vidor) without actually getting a ticket."

Police administrators from various cities each said their departments do not place a traffic-ticket quota on officers. Each said they feel no pressure from city leaders to issue more tickets for the sake of money. Tickets, they said, are one way to improve safety.

Millions in fines

On the whole, $6.3 million in municipal court revenue will be split among the 15 cities with police departments in Jefferson, Hardin and Orange counties, according to budgets reviewed for each of the cities. Those projections are mostly based on last year's municipal court collections, and early data on the number of tickets issued shows it could be even higher.

Traffic tickets issued by Southeast Texas police departments totaled 53,600 through the first nine months of the current financial year, which runs through August, according to a public database maintained by the Texas Office of Court Administration.

That number is up 4 percent from the same period last year and is 10 percent higher than an average of the past three years.

However, in more than half of the 15 cities with police departments, including Vidor, the numbers of tickets issued in the current budget year are down.

An increase of more than 3,000 in Beaumont more than outweighs the relatively modest decreases in most cities, which police administrators mostly attribute to frequent rain showers.

Still, Beaumont ranks near the bottom regionally in municipal court revenue based on its population ($12.95 per capita) and in how reliant the city's general fund is upon fines (1.3 percent).

Those two data points drew scrutiny nationally after police departments in St. Louis County, Missouri, were widely accused of using traffic enforcement to fund city governments, potentially contributing to deep distrust and disdain among residents for their police departments.

Some of those Missouri police agencies, one of which set up an officer with a radar gun in a vacant hotel room, were contributing more than 50 percent of their city's funding through municipal court revenue, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. A few departments in small cities brought in so much revenue that it equated to millions of dollars per resident.

Two highways and no property taxes

In Lumberton, Beaumont's burgeoning bedroom community, the land of no city property taxes, money derived from municipal court pays for 14.5 percent of the city's operating expenses, the highest share in Southeast Texas.

Still, the $586,000 Lumberton's municipal court yields for the city barely covers a fourth of police department expenses needed to patrol two highways.

Police Chief Danny Sullins said speed enforcement on U.S. 69 and 96 is generally relaxed, with his officers not ticketing speeders over the 45 mph posted limit as long as they don't surpass a more-forgiving cushion. "Speeding with tolerance," he said.

That tolerance evaporates in some residential areas, but Sullins said speed-limit signs in those place are marked "strictly enforced."

Thirteen of the department's 17 officers are assigned to patrol. They focus on areas they believe are important, usually based on traffic accidents or complaints, Sullins said.

"We've got two major highways," Sullins said. "We have a lot of wrecks."

If police hear complaints from residents, they set up a "radar trailer," which tracks the number of drivers and their speed, but does not have a camera or issue tickets. Sometimes, the department will respond to its findings by focusing more patrols in that area, Sullins said.

Lumberton police issued 22 tickets per day last year, third-most in the region behind Beaumont and Port Arthur. Speeding makes up most of the infractions, but frequently one traffic stop will result in other citations, for issues like driving without a license or lack of insurance or up-to-date registration.

A man, his bike and his laser

Leading the way in Vidor is Officer Ruggles, a motorcycle cop and the department's one-man traffic enforcement division. He's developed a reputation.

Ruggles frequently crouches behind his bike to steady his aim of a cross-haired laser speed detector that can pick out a single vehicle from a group of cars a half-mile away, Shows said.

Shows said some people complain to him that Ruggles is trying to hide when he crouches behind the motorcycle. He and Ruggles both said that's not the case - it's instead about accuracy.

"Just because someone says I didn't see you doesn't make it a speed trap," Ruggles said.

More than 9 percent of Vidor's budget is funded with municipal court revenue. On a per-capita basis, that revenue compares closely to Lumberton, with an average of $47.60 per resident. Vidor ranks in the top five locally in both categories.

The department so far in the current budget year has issued 27 percent fewer traffic tickets than through the same time one year ago. Ruggles cited the rain-laden spring, which has kept him off the interstate more than usual.

The lower numbers this year are not because of fewer speeders or a shift in enforcement strategy, Ruggles said.

"It doesn't matter what people put the speed limit at, people are going to push it and go past it," he said.

A city with no cops

For Pine Forest, policing wasn't worth the money.

City Council last week declared its police department inactive.

The police chief's position has been unfilled since June 2014, and the 1997-model patrol car that requires a jump-off to start will sit in a garage until it is sold, if leaders can find a buyer.

Instead, officials are finalizing a deal with an Orange County constable to handle policing in the city of 487.

"Because of the size of the city and the amount of money, it was hard to maintain (the police department)," Mayor Joey Peno said. "Court costs would kill us, if (suspects) wanted to go to a jury."

Court sessions aren't regularly scheduled anymore, after the frequency declined from once a week to once a month to as-needed. Knowing that arrest warrants weren't being pursued because there were no more police officers, ticketed suspects stopped showing up to court, Peno said.

Pine Forest's current budget is $95,703. They couldn't find the money to replace the 18-year-old patrol car if they wanted to, Peno said.

"All of our money was being funneled to the police department," Peno said. "It's not like there's a lot of speedways through here."

Rose City, which has 15 more people than Pine Forest but two miles of I-10, is headed in the opposite direction.

City officers have issued 301 tickets through the first nine months of the current budget year, more than three times last year's number.

"We have a lot of speeders who go through here, and it had gotten out of control," City Secretary Tonya Veazey said.

Rose City's mayor doubles as its chief of police.

After the city's long-time marshal left last year, the city replaced him with two deputy marshals, one full-time and the other part-time.

Traffic enforcement is split on I-10 and Old U.S. 90, and it has definitely intensified, Veazey said

"(The new marshal) does write a significant amount of tickets more than our (former marshal)," Veazey said.

Earnest officers behind ticket spike

Groves police also have issued a lot more tickets this year than last.

At 1,678 from September through May, they've more than doubled the pace from the last budget year.

City Marshal Norman Reynolds, whose department ranks near the bottom in municipal revenue per capita and in how much of the city's budget that revenue represents, said the seeming spike in tickets would put the department on pace for about 2,000 over the full year, which would be close to the department's previous all-time high.

As for why, Reynolds chalked it up to an influx of young, eager officers in his 21-person department.

"They're just staying busy," Reynolds said. "They're out there enforcing the traffic (laws)."

Reynolds said Groves' officers have issued 1,922 warnings.

"It's always officers' discretion, whether they write a citation or not. And yeah, I'm good with (the number of warnings being higher than tickets)."

Four out of every 10 tickets the department issues are for speeding, a number that aligns with Vidor, Reynolds said. Most of the other tickets are tacked onto speeding violators after officers notice other infractions, he said.

Unlike Vidor, Lumberton, Beaumont, Bridge City and others, Groves police do not have a major highway or interstate to worry about. Texas 73 runs through the city, but it is elevated and only connected to city streets by off-ramps, reducing the attention GPD pays to a part of the city with higher speeds.

Instead, officers focus on streets throughout the city.

"It can be a neighborhood street or it can be one of the main thoroughfares," Reynolds said. "It might be an intersection, traffic light, whatever. If we see that there's an issue, or traffic accidents, we'll (increase patrols)."